Instruments

Pianos

At Susquehanna, performance halls and large rehearsal venues are graced with beautiful instruments, including concert 9-foot Steinway grand pianos in Stretansky Concert Hall and Weber Chapel Auditorium; one concert 9-foot Baldwin grand in Degenstein Campus Theater and one Steinway B piano in Heilman Rehearsal Hall.

Instruments accessible to the music students include eight grand pianos in the practice spaces and classrooms—three Steinways, one Boston Steinway and four Baldwins. Keyboard majors have exclusive access to three of the grand pianos. Students also benefit from the Steinway grand pianos in the faculty studios that are used for practice, lessons and musical rehearsals.

Harpsichord

Double Manual Flemish Harpsichord, Stretansky Hall, CCMA.
(Frank Hubbard, Boston 1976)

With the typical Flemish decorations, this harpsichord is a modern copy of instruments made by the 17th Century Antwerp builder Ruckers, featuring two keyboards with Taskin ravallement. Frank Hubbard (Boston) built the instrument as commissioned by the late Richard N. Barshinger, its first owner. The instrument has three choirs (8'+8'+4') and two manuals with ebony naturals and bone accidentals. It is strung for A 440, but also tunable at A 415, with a range of 61 notes (FF-f"'). The case has a dark green merde d'oie lacquered finish, gilded banding and trim, full Flemish papers, Latin mottoes and arabesques.

 Organs

Ruggles Organ

Cunningham Center for Music and Arts, Room 136
(Ruggles, Opus 27, 1996)

The organ in Cunningham Center for Music and Art, Room 136, was built in 1996 by Charles M. Ruggles. This organ was designed as a practice instrument, featuring some historical elements not found in the other university organs:  the pedal board is flat and non-radiating and the tuning is Young (1800). The instrument contains six ranks (one reed, a Regal 8’) and two 56-note manuals, plus a 30-note pedal board. The organ has suspended mechanical action with slider chests. The beautiful casework of solid cherry and redwood features panels cut out in designs inspired by English crop circles. This instrument was purchased with a grant awarded by the Edna M. Sheary Charitable Trust.

The Dobson Organ

Horn Meditation Chapel
(Dobson, Opus 33, 1986)

The organ in Horn Meditation Chapel was built in 1986 by Lynn Dobson. This is his thirty-third instrument, and his first instrument in Pennsylvania.

The organ contains seven ranks and two manuals, plus a 32‐note concave pedal board (AGO standards). A Tremulant, which affects the entire organ, and an octave transmission of the pedal 16’ stop at 8’ give the organ a total of nine stops. The horizontal movement of the stop mechanism is unique to Dobson organs. The instrument has mechanical action, the action which characterized pipe organ building prior to the advent of electricity and an action to which pipe organ builders have returned in recent decades because of its sensitivity. The organ is tuned in Kirnberger III, an eighteenth-century well-tempered tuning, in which all but four fifths are pure. This instrument is a memorial to Solveig Wald Horn and to James M. Horn, wife and son of John C. Horn, chair emeritus of the university’s Board of Directors. It was made possible by major gifts from the Horn family and the Women’s Auxiliary of Susquehanna University.

The Möller Organ

Weber Chapel
(Möller, Opus 10030, 1967)

The organ in Weber Chapel was built in 1967 by the M. P. Möller Pipe Organ Company of Hagerstown, Md., and received extensive renovation by Columbia Organ Works in 1999. Originally, the instrument had electric-pneumatic action; at the 1999 renovation it was transformed into direct electrical action. The instrument contains 46 ranks and three manuals (58 notes), plus a 32-note concave pedal board (AGO standards). In 2005, the console was rebuilt with new bone and ebony keyboards. In addition, a solid state switching system and multi-level combination action was installed (130 levels). The console is on a moveable platform which allows it to be placed in the center of the chancel for organ recitals and concerts. This organ was built with funds raised by the Women’s Auxiliary of Susquehanna University.